{"id":83325,"date":"2026-02-24T11:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T17:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/?p=83325"},"modified":"2026-02-24T11:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T17:27:12","slug":"oj-elringtons-rape-trial-begins-behind-closed-doors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/oj-elringtons-rape-trial-begins-behind-closed-doors\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;OJ&#8221; Elrington&#8217;s Rape Trial Begins Behind Closed Doors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rape trial of attorney Orson \u201cOJ\u201d Elrington began today in the High Court before Justice Nigel Pilgrim, but the first issue was whether the public should be kept out of the courtroom.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reporters were denied entry this morning as legal submissions focused on whether the matter should be heard in camera because of the nature of the allegations. The issue was addressed before any evidence was called.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Elrington <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/oj-to-stand-trial-for-rape-next-year\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">faces a charge of rape stemming<\/a> from an alleged incident on January 23, 2023. A woman in her mid-20s reported that she met him at a nightclub and later went to his home, where the assault allegedly occurred.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Elrington denies the accusation. He was charged in March 2024 and granted bail of $8,000.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The defence is led by former Attorney General Senior Counsel Wilfred Elrington. The Crown\u2019s case is being presented by Director of Public Prosecutions Cheryl Lynn Vidal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">News 5 attempted to obtain comment from both the prosecution and defence. Both declined to speak.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The High Court is expected to rule on whether the trial will continue in open court or remain closed as substantive evidence is set to begin.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The rape trial of attorney Orson \u201cOJ\u201d Elrington began today in the High Court before Justice Nigel Pilgrim, but the first issue was whether the public should be kept out of the courtroom. Reporters were denied entry this morning as legal submissions focused on whether [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":83334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[484,444,475],"tags":[10980,10978],"class_list":["post-83325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-latest-news","category-news","tag-oj-elringtons-rape-trial-begins-behind-closed-doors","tag-2026-02-24"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83337,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83325\/revisions\/83337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greaterbelize.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}